About Nancy
Curriculum Vitae
She is one of a handful of women in the world to win Communication Arts Magazine - Award of Excellence in Photography 3 or more times. Communication Arts is the venerable 66-year-old international authority of creative distinction. Communication Arts is THE professional competition for designers, art directors, design firms, corporate design departments, agencies, and related professions. To win an Award for Excellence in any of these categories is somewhat equivalent to winning an Academy Award. CA's Award of Excellence is one of the most-coveted awards in the industry. If chosen, winning places you in the highest ranks of your profession. As a point of reference, National Geographic is often a contestant for this award.
Nancy’s work has also been twice recognized in Creative Quarterly Magazine and she has won several Portrait Master awards.
Nancy is also an independent Photographer and Writer. For many years, she has specialized in non-verbal communication, and in marketing to women. Prior to turning pro, Nancy was a commercial make-up artist working with fashion and editorial shoots for other photographers. She was in demand for teaching seminars with classes for private photography groups on the power of light and make up.
After turning pro, Nancy worked for Allison Research Technologies as a Product Photographer and Graphic Designer. She provided Graphic Design, Package Design, and Web Elements along with Product Photography for an innovative Virtual Reality Marketing Analysis and Research program. Their client list was drawn from top Fortune 500 companies and included Coke, Wendy's, Pfizer, P&G, and Revlon. Nancy was 2-D Project Manager for Coke's Marketing Research study for Vault and Coke Zero.
Nancy's Fine Art Photography has been featured in many art shows and has found collectors as far away as China and England.
It started here:
Early on, I was inspired by the painting known as Christina’s World by Andrew Wyeth. Years ago, I bought a framed print and she’s been in my house every since. The print is currently in my garden/laundry room.
The bleakness of her world, so stark and lonely, contrasted with her pretty pink dress. The real story, however, makes the image so much stronger. The girl in that bleak landscape was Christina Olson. She was disabled and couldn’t walk but it didn’t stop her. She did her farm chores and eschewed a wheelchair. She used her arms to keep going. If ever a woman quietly roared, it was she. This was a determined woman and she, along with the artist who captured her spirit, remains my artistic inspiration.
Artist statement:
This is art for the tastemakers: the interior designers who sculpt sanctuaries, the collectors who seek soul in their walls. My work draws from a tradition of elegance—think the poised restraint of early pictorialism, kissed by modern clarity. Here, every piece is destined to elevate spaces and spark conversation or create a haven of loveliness. My art is for people like me—those who laugh at life’s messes and still crave beauty that lasts.
I hope my art inspires people to put more real Art in their homes rather than cheap decor from from Amazon, Walmart, or Temu. I hope it inspires more people to collect and invest in Fine Art. I hope they begin to start art collections for their grand children and giving Fine Art as wedding gifts, graduation gifts, and other meaningful milestones. So, I hope to create Fine Art that they can hang on their office wall to inspire them as Christina Olson inspires me. I find the stories of art fascinating. It isn’t just how it’s made but in what it represents and who it represents. In all my work, above all, I hope people can see it as a mirror of their own fineness and value.
Technique and genre
Today, with the emphasis of contemporary art being more about statements oriented to the juxtapositions of our troubled culture, my work uses contemporary technology to return to the tableaux vivant and pictorialism perspectives, along with a dip into the Old Master’s and the Renaissance styles of Fine Art.
My Genre. History.
The Tableau. A Digital Oil on Canvas. A composite of three photos each representing one facet of women. The contented woman in Pony Boy gold, the tainted Purity in glam-gossip white, and the Warrior in Black satin because blood stains don’t show on black. Behind is a Royal Purple gown waiting for its turn to shine.
Tableau, or Tableaux Vivants, is a century old term used to describe a painting or photograph in which characters are arranged for picturesque or dramatic effect and appear absorbed and completely unaware of the existence of the viewer. It's considered a "living picture" and have been popular since medieval times. Even Queen Victoria's children participated as living mannequins in 1854.
With the birth of photography, Tableaus were widely welcomed since flash photography wasn’t readily available. The performers had to stand very still and that was important in early photography. As photography grew in popularity, Tableaux were often combined with a style known Pictorialism, which is an approach to photography that emphasizes the softness and beauty of the subject via tonality and composition rather than sharpe evidentiary documentation as is done in journalism, headshots, and editorial work. It’s still a desirable approach as the use of filters can attest.
The Pictorialist Style.
This ideal was born in the late 1860s and held sway through the first decade of the 20th century. It approached the camera as an artist’s tool, like the paintbrush and palette. A tool for creating art rather than recording reality.
The Pictorialists were drawn to the camera's artistic qualities. They used it as an escape from reality rather than as a tool to grab a snapshot. They preferred a romantic artistic composition, such as the tableaux. In the darkroom, they expended considerable time and effort to go beyond development of the film. Their goal was to create unique works of art. To do that they discovered new techniques and time-consuming processes, such as gum bichromate, chrysotype (gold) and platinum printing, and engraved photogravures. Their work was printed and presented as part of their art process. They often presented work on layers of lightly toned, transparent papers. The frame was also part of the artist’s composition of the overall finished piece. Today, I use a digital darkroom to recreate Old Master styles, oils, and other traditional painting styles along with photography prints.
My art has a deeply historic esthetic, yet it uses advanced creative techniques and is emotionally driven by modern contexts.
These are the traditions and values from which my work takes direction.
One Last thing:
A Fun Factoid:
Back in the day, Nancy was the key make-up artist and lead actor in an Independent film. The script was based on a modern day Jesus who had been raised in the current American culture from birth. The family is portrayed as economically disadvantaged and largely uneducated. Jesus was extremely overweight. Nan played the role of Mary, who smoked Marlboro reds and sported chipped nail polish. The Film, titled, “s o n · o f · m a n” opened at the 2002 Atlanta Film and Video Festival and was honored for its special artistic value at the 2003 Philadelphia International Short Film Festival.
